Descoings Autopsy Inconclusive, Medical Examiner Says

By Chris Dolmetsch and Gregory Viscusi -
Apr 5, 2012

(Corrects Descoings’s name in 18th paragraph.)

More tests are needed to determine
the cause of death for Richard Descoings, the French academic
found dead in a New York hotel two days ago, after an autopsy
was inconclusive, the medical examiner’s office said.

Tissue and toxicology tests are needed to determine the
cause of death for the 53-year-old director of France’s Sciences
Po institute, and those tests could take about two weeks, the
New York City Chief Medical Examiner’s Office said yesterday.

“Detectives are waiting for the same results,” Browne
said in an e-mail. “There’s nothing at this juncture to
establish foul play.”

Hotel Lobby

Descoings was scheduled to meet a colleague in the lobby at
about 7:30 a.m. April 3, Browne said. When he didn’t arrive, his
colleague assumed he had departed for the conference already and
left the hotel, Browne said.

A hotel worker went into the seventh-floor room to refill
the minibar at about 9:30 a.m., saw Descoings sleeping and left,
Browne said. Descoings was still asleep when a security guard
checked on him just before 11 a.m. after conference attendees
called the hotel, Browne said.

The hotel again sent a guard to check on Descoings at about
12:45 p.m. after his phone went unanswered, and the guard found
him unresponsive, lying on his bed, naked, Browne said. The
hotel called 911, and emergency medical technicians pronounced
Descoings dead at the scene after they were unable to revive
him, Browne said.

There was no visible trauma to his body, and robbery was
ruled out, said Browne. Descoings’s laptop and mobile phone were
found on a third-floor ledge outside the hotel and may have been
thrown out of the window, Browne said.

Drugs, Alcohol

Prescription drugs and alcohol were found in the room, ABC
News reported, without citing anyone. Browne didn’t respond to a
request for comment on the report.

A phone message left at the Michelangelo seeking comment on
Descoings’s death wasn’t returned. The hotel is part of the
Florence, Italy-based Starhotels chain run by the Fabri family,
according to its website.

In his 16 years running Sciences Po, Descoings transformed
the Paris-based university, whose alumni include former
President Jacques Chirac and former United Nations Secretary
General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. He added programs in economics
and journalism, introduced courses taught in English and
reserved places for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Descoings was “a great public servant who dedicated his
entire life to the cause he’d chosen: education,” President
Nicolas Sarkozy said in a statement. “He was a pioneer in
opening up internationally and in seeking new financing, a
tireless and passionate worker.”

Six Campuses

The school, formally called the Institute for Political
Studies, also opened six campuses outside of Paris and raised
tuition under Descoings. At Sarkozy’s request, he produced a
report on the secondary education system in 2009.

“His accomplishments at Sciences Po were renowned,” said
Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande. “Descoings
still had much to contribute to the educational system.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and Columbia University
President Lee Bollinger said in a joint statement that they were
“deeply saddened” by Descoings’s death.

“He was a global leader on education policy, recognized
and honored both in France and around the world for his
contributions to research and policy,” Ban and Bollinger said
in the statement.

‘Deeply Affected’ Campus

Sciences Po said in a statement that Descoings’s death has
“deeply affected the vast community of Sciences Po: students,
alumni, teachers, employees and international partners.” His
death is “unfair because it comes at a time when he had some
much more to give. It is unfair because it comes before he got
any of the credit he deserved.”

Students at the school created a shrine on campus with
candles and thousands of notes.

The board of Sciences Po will look for his successor,
according to the statement.

The institute’s website has a photo of Descoings smiling
from a row of desks with a banner saying “Merci a Richard
Descoings: 1958-2012.”

The spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office wasn’t
immediately available for comment yesterday on the New York
investigation. France’s Foreign Ministry remains in touch with
New York police through its consulate there and had no further
comment, a spokesman in Paris said.

Descoings was born in Paris and graduated from France’s
prestigious Ecole Nationale d’Administration in 1985. He worked
at the culture ministry and other governmental posts before
taking charge of budget issues at the education ministry under
Socialist Minister Jack Lang in 1992.

Descoings married Nadia Marik, a judge and fellow
administrator at Sciences Po, in 2004.